It involves conducting electrical pulses constituting the data through a slime mold colony in a way that scrambles it and affects how they grow.

Huh! And you can decrypt it just from the shape of the slime mold?

No, you decrypt it from how the electrical pulses come scrambled when they return in the other direction.

Katie's not exactly a tech person, but she is fascinated nonetheless.

While she is reading the informational placard a guy comes up and makes a $140,000 order for slime molds for an unspecified buyer.

As fascinating as this is, there aren't many ways for her to interact with a slime mold.

Next, camouflage goop you can put over a gap in your paint on your wall and your house and it will match color.

Huh? Could it also be used as like, concealer or whatever? Katie doesn't wear makeup, but she knows sometimes it needs to match the color of your skin and this causes difficulties for some people.

"This version is flat color, and fully opaque; it's not going to hurt you as long as you don't get it up your nose or eat it or put it in your eye or have an open wound or certain blood conditions, but it'll look like putting a sticker on yourself, it can't mimic skin texture or natural color variation."

"Should probably work on fixing that, then. Would be a lot more in demand."

"I can tell you don't have a house or a car!"

"Well, I don't wear makeup either." Ouch. Burn.

"Maybe a future variation will be able to mimic texture."

Next booth - actually she's getting close to stuff she's seen before now, like the spider jellies, but this booth is new to her and has self-brewing tea, where if you put a pinch of it in a cup of water it'll have an exothermic reaction, boiling the liquid and diffusing its flavors throughout. Not recommended if you have vasodilating disorders of any kind.

Oooh! Can this be done to hot cocoa mix as well?

"We've got an instant cider and we're working on coffee but the milk powder in hot chocolate is tough!"

"Would doing it with just cocoa powder and sugar added to real milk be easier or harder?"

"Ooh, no, have you seen milk boil? It'd foam up like mad, might scorch."

"Damnit. Guess this one isn't for me."

"Maybe we'll have the kinks worked out next year!" She shifts position adjusting a display and Katie can see that her backless dress exposes an entire ?Siamese twin? attached at an angle from shoulder to hip.

Yeah, she's getting out of here.

Monoceros is closing a deal on some of her tuna.

"Hello! I have looked around the convention! There were many cute animals!"

"Well, your cat would probably murder any you tried to bring home, but they sure are fun to look at."

"Indeed!"

"What's your favorite?"